Snapshot of a life worth living for
by Balloons go POP
Summary: John gets the help he needs to get up and move on from an unexpected sorce. John POV. Dean takes baby Sammy to the one person he knows will make everything okay...his mum.


_**Disclaimer:**_ Dean, Sam, and John belong to Kripke and his fabulous writers from the CW.

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**Snapshot of a life worth living for**

It's been three months since Mary's funeral. I still haven't cried since that night sitting on the hood of the Impala watching our life burn up in front of my very eyes. Missouri thinks I'm blocking out my pain so that it doesn't consume me. She couldn't be more wrong. I hurt so bad that I'm beyond tears.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night. Waking up to an empty bed every morning is agony but at least then the sun is shinning and I know I HAVE to get up because Dean needs his breakfast and Sam needs his bottle and I have to put out the garbage bins. But in the middle of the night I don't have to do anything. I have nothing to distract me from the gapping hole she's left in me. It's like I've been split down the middle and half of me is missing. I lay there for a while staring at her side of the bed. I used to wake up smelling of her, her hair spread out across the pillow, her arm wrapped around my waist, her breath warm against my ear. I feel cold without her an icy fear wraps itself around my heart and no blankets, no heater, no fire will melt it. I kicked back the blankets, unable to stay in that bed a minute longer and padded down the hall. Sticking my head in Dean's room and then the nursery I saw that for once both my angels were sleeping soundly. Damn. I was hoping Sammy would be awake and then I would have an excuse for giving him a hug and staying with him for the rest of the night.

I wandered down the stairs my feet sinking into the red carpet. Mary had laughed the first time we'd seen red carpet in a house. We'd been looking at houses to rent just after we'd gotten married and the real estate agent had left us alone for a minute. She'd sauntered down that red carpeted hallway pretending to be a movie star.

God I miss her.

Since that night, staying in all the places I've stayed in since I've learnt that every house is creepy in the middle of the night. This no different. Without its inhabitants running around, cooking, cleaning, screaming, watching TV, the house seemed almost clinical, like a hospital surgery waiting for a patient, useless without someone inside.

I wandered into the kitchen and wiped down the already clean bench. I rinsed out the clean sink. Re-hung the tea towel for no apparent reason.

There was ironing to be done but I wasn't that depressed yet. I flopped down on the scuffed leather couch and flicked on the television. Why is it that the shopping channel is the only thing on at 4 in the morning? And why do they put sex line adds in between 'The Amazing Jake's Shake Maker' and 'Mr Clean Advance." Aren't lesbian porn and Mr Clean kinda opposites? I absently pressed buttons on the remote settling on the business channel. If hearing about 2 rises in the All Ordinaries didn't put me to sleep nothing would.

A sudden shriek sent John bolting from the living room back to the bedrooms. Long years of military experience made him grab a pistol off the bedside table on his first stride. _It's got to be bad for Dean to yell!_

He reached the end of the hall in mere seconds, dropping to a crouch and swinging the pistol in first, keeping the wall as a cover as he scanned the room.

Dean hadn't yelled. He was in the centre of his dads bed a video playing on the TV directly in front of him. He sat with his little brother resting on a baby blanket; they were almost nose to nose with the woman in the video.

Mary was in the foreground, beaming into a camera she either held out or had on a tripod right in front of her. Her hair was bound loosely in a ponytail, the same ash brown as her daughter's, with its highlights caught by the sunlight. Her big paint splattered t-shirt dwarfed her gangly frame, she looked blissfully happy.

"The house is finally done," Mary announced happily. "So we're not stuck living out of the car anymore--"

A broad chest filled the space behind her and two arms came down, grabbing her. She shrieked playfully, and the world spun as she was whirled around.

"Johnny, put me down, put me down!" she yelled and the camera bounced as she was unceremoniously dropped. It straightened out as she got her balance back, the view swinging from her to the owner of the chest previously behind her.

"My attacker," she said and framed the young man in the movie from head to toe. He grinned and waved, then mockingly stalked her and the camera. His dark brown hair turned black as he moved into the shade, billowing slightly in the breeze. As he got closer, his brown eyes glanced curiously into the camera.

"Why are you holding it?" he asked her.

"The tripod's broken."

He frowned, turning back to the house. "Why didn't you say so? I can take care of that." He disappeared inside and Mary spun the camera back to her, rolling her eyes.

"Personally, I think he broke it so he could fix it. But back to the house--"

Dean paused the video, stabbing at the buttons on the TV until he found the right one. Turning to his baby brother he lifted his chin until he was staring at the woman on the television.

"Do you see Sammy? That's Mummy."

John felt his knees weaken and he leant against the doorframe suddenly unable to breathe. His brave baby boy was looking after his brother in the only way he knew how. He took her to Mummy.

John dropped the gun onto the hall table the noise catching Dean's attention. He looked scared like he knew he shouldn't be playing with the TV and even more shouldn't be watching _that _tape. "I'm sorry Daddy…" John crossed the room in three quick strides and dropped to his knees grabbing Dean in a tight hug.

"No I'm sorry baby." He said, voice choked with sobs.

He pulled away slightly his big hands framing Dean's tiny face.

Although the tears ran freely down his face John smiled at his son.

"Let's watch the tape huh?"

Dean nodded his own eyes filling. John picked him up. Cradling him close and then dropped to the bed next to his baby boy. Sammy looked up wide eyed at his father, rolling onto his back to get a better look.

John crossed his legs and leaned back against the headboard. Dean settled himself in his dad's lap and waved at his brother. John smiled at his kids picking Sammy up and putting him in Dean's lap. Then with both his children in his arms John pressed play and they watched Mary smile back at them. Her beaming face forever etched on his memory.

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I have no idea if there were video recorders in that time….wow almost 30 years ago, practically prehistoric lol. Anyway I hope you could see past this little alteration of the timeline because I thought this was a cute way to explore how the death of a matriarch can screw up a family dynamic. This story was originally written for Winchester widows but I've put that story on hiatus so I changed the main character from Dean to John. Hope you like it and please let me know what you think. **REVIEW!!!!!!**

Cheers love Balloons


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